Moscow, 1937

by Karl Schlogel

  Feuchtwanger highlights the differences between image and the reality:

  His portraits give the impression that Stalin is big, broad and commanding. Actually, he is, on the contrary, small and slightly built. He seemed, as it were, lost in the vast room of the Kremlin in which I found him. Stalin speaks slowly in a low, rather colourless voice. He has no liking for a dialogue of short, excited questions, answers and interruptions, but prefers to string together slow, considered sentences. Often, what he says sounds ready for the press, as if he were dictating. He walks up and down whilst he is speaking, then suddenly approaches you, pointing a finger of his beautiful hand, expounding, didactic; or whilst he is forming his considered sentences, draws arabesques and figures on a sheet of paper with a blue and red pencil.

  No arrangement had been made as to what I was to discuss with Stalin. I had prepared no subjects of conversation of any sort: I wanted to leave it to the impression of the man and the inspiration of the moment to determine what I should talk about. I was rather afraid that it might be one of those more or less official, set conversations such as Stalin has had on two or three occasions with Western writers. And at first it did seem as if this was to be the case. We spoke of the role of the writer in Socialist society, of the revolutionary effect which is often exercised even by reactionary writers such as, for example, Gogol; of the intellectual and how far he is affected or unaffected by his class; of freedom of speech and of writing in the Soviet Union. At first Stalin spoke cautiously and in general terms. But gradually he grew more expansive, and soon I realized that I could talk frankly with this man. I spoke candidly and he replied candidly. Stalin speaks without embellishment, and, moreover, can express complicated thoughts simply. Often he speaks almost too simply, accustomed as he is to formulating his thoughts so that they will be understood from Moscow to Vladivostok. He has perhaps no wit, but he certainly has humour; and his humour can be dangerous. Now and again, he utters a soft, dull, sly laugh. He feels at home in many spheres, and he quotes names, dates, and facts, from memory, accurately and without hesitation.

  We spoke about the freedom of writing, about democracy and, as I have already mentioned, about Stalin-worship. Only at the beginning of our conversation did Stalin express himself in general terms, using sundry hackneyed expressions from the Party vocabulary. Soon he ceased to be the Party leader and became an individual, not always uncontradicting, but always modest, unpresuming, and deliberate.

  He became excited when we talked of the Trotskyist trials and spoke in detail of the charges against Pyatakov and Radek, the substance of which was not at that time common property. He spoke of the panic which the Fascist danger aroused in people who could not think to a logical conclusion. I referred again to the harmful effect which the all too simple conduct of the Zinoviev trial had had abroad, even amongst well-wishers. Stalin laughed a little at those who demanded many written documents before they could bring themselves to believe in a conspiracy; practised conspirators, he said, were not in the habit of leaving their documents lying around for all to see. Finally he spoke bitterly and with feeling of the writer Radek, the most popular of the men involved in the second Trotskyist trial. He described his friendly relations with the man. ‘You Jews’, he said, ‘have created one eternally true legend – that of Judas,’ and it was strange to hear a man, otherwise so sober and logical, utter such simple, emotional words. He told me about a long letter which Radek had written to him and in which he had protested his innocence on many unconvincing grounds. The very next day, under pressure of witnesses and circumstantial evidence, he had confessed.11

  In order to have his conversation with Stalin, Feuchtwanger had foregone the opportunity to meet Bukharin, who had been under house arrest since December. For Stalin, the interview was so important that he sacrificed three hours of his working time for it. Not only did Stalin meet Feuchtwanger between the two great Moscow show trials but, even more pointedly, the days immediately preceding the meeting had witnessed the interrogations and confrontations of the accused at the show trial, which was due to begin on 23 January. Stalin told Feuchtwanger directly about the latest revelations from the interrogations and confrontations and from the letter that Radek had written to him.

  Feuchtwanger had clearly been irritated by the Trotskyist trial, as we can see here and also from the fact that he discussed it with Georgi Dimitrov. Dimitrov noted in his diary on 16 December 1936:

  Feuchtwanger and Maria Osten visited us. About the trial:

  1.Incomprehensible why the accused should have committed such crimes;

  2. Incomprehensible why all the accused confess everything, knowing full well that this will cost them their lives;

  3.Incomprehensible why, apart from their confessions, the accused are not confronted with any proofs;

  4.Incomprehensible why there are such harsh punishments for political opponents, when the Soviet regime is so powerful that those who have been imprisoned by it cannot represent a serious threat.

  The records of the trial have been put together carelessly; they are full of contradictions and fail to convince.

  The conduct of the trial was ‘monstrous’.12

  During a second visit to Dimitrov, on 2 February 1937, after the end of the second trial, Feuchtwanger again returns to the subject of the trial:

  Feuchtwanger here (in the Comintern). (Accompanied by Maria Osten.)

  The strongest impression he had received was a) the training and thirst for knowledge shown by young people, b) the plan to reconstruct Moscow.

  As for the trial:

  1. Diversionary actions, spying and terror have been proved.

  2.It is also proved that Trotsky inspired and led them.

  3.The only evidence for Trotsky’s collaboration with Hess and the Japanese is the self-accusations of the accused. No proofs of any sort!

  4.The fact that Radek and Sokolnikov were not condemned to death is regarded outside Russia as proof that they intentionally made such statements in order to save their own skins.

  5.The coarse abuse of the accused creates a negative impression of them. These are enemies who deserve to be destroyed. But they did not act from motives of personal interest and did not deserve to be treated as scoundrels, cowards, reptiles, etc.

  6.Why such a fuss about the trial – Unclear. It has created an atmosphere of extraordinary disquiet among the populace. Mutual recriminations, denunciations, etc.

  Trotskyism is dead. Why is there need of such a campaign?13

  A non-communist sympathizer, favourably disposed towards the Soviet Union, could hardly have expressed himself more clearly on the subject of the trial. Nevertheless, both men had their reasons for wanting a dialogue. Stalin because he did not wish to miss the opportunity of exploiting the fame of a European writer whose importance and influence might counteract the international loss of respect and the isolation of the Soviet Union. Feuchtwanger because he did not wish to alienate the representative of the only power that seemed resolved to oppose fascism. Feuchtwanger placed his entire reputation and moral authority in the scales; his commitment was significant. Stalin, the dictator who had just studied the records of the interrogations and was preparing to edit the indictment, was also prepared to go out of his way. He had laid himself open to extremely uncomfortable questions. He even allowed Feuchtwanger’s report and opinions to appear in Soviet newspapers and magazines and his book to be published in an edition of 200,000 copies. It was an immediate sell-out.14

  Figure 5.1 Feuchtwanger and Stalin in the Kremlin, 8 January 1937

  ‘From the way the two men look past each other, it is evident that each had his own agenda.’

  From the way the two men look past each other, it is evident that each had his own agenda: on the one hand, the intellectual, who had nothing with which to oppose fascism but the hope that a genuine anti-fascist counterforce might emerge and who was willing to risk his entire authority and integrity for that. On the other, the dictator, who was prepare
d to engage in dialogue with an intellectual whom he may have thought of as an idiot but who might turn out to be useful at a time when danger threatened both himself and the Soviet Union. We may think of it as a dialogue that took place in the shadow of an approaching war, a situation that would lead – with the same mixed feelings – to the coalition against Hitler a mere four years later.

  The impotence of the anti-fascist movement: how to generate a point of view

  Feuchtwanger soon abandoned his resolution simply to look and observe and to remain silent until he was able to give objective shape to an impression. Instead, he proclaimed: ‘I came, I saw, I shall write’!15 In the preface to his ‘Visit described for my friends’ he explained why he could no longer hold back, and he ended somewhat portentously: ‘Therefore I am bearing witness.’16 There are evidently two underlying themes here. First, he felt under an obligation to take sides in the debate going on in the West about how to deal with the Soviet Union, and he did this by coming out ‘against lukewarm opinion, stupidity, ill-will, and apathy’, against the suspicions and slanders that were to be heard whenever the subject of the Soviet Union was raised. As a writer and dramatist, he worked with historical actors and could permit himself to establish a distance between himself and them, a stance which was no longer open to him as a contemporary who had been driven into exile because of his religion and his art. Feuchtwanger now acted no longer as a historical writer, but as a witness to his age and a journalist, as an intellectual who, like the majority of exiled writers and intellectuals, had become a politician despite himself. Robbed of their natural context and material means, they now desperately sought a power that could challenge the rampant spread of fascism throughout Europe. Feuchtwanger was one of the foremost figures ready and willing to join and lead the struggle to bring together all forces with an interest in calling a halt to the advance of fascism, even though such forces were divided and fragmented and were far from prepared for a ‘Popular Front against fascism’.

  Figure 5.2 Cover of the first edition of Feuchtwanger’s Moscow 1937, which was published by the Querido Verlag in Amsterdam in 1937

  ‘Therefore I am bearing witness.’

  It was this dire existential situation and the apparently total impotence in the face of the rise of European fascism that spurred Feuchtwanger on and also determined his point of view. Scarcely anyone else had been so deeply convinced from the very outset that Hitler’s policies would lead inexorably to war. Feuchtwanger was no politician, but he had already had a number of object lessons in the realities of politics – the Soviet Republic in Bavaria and Hitler’s attempted putsch in Munich, the global economic crisis in 1929, the overthrow of the Weimar Republic in 1933 in Berlin and, since the summer of 1936, the revolt of the Falangists against the Spanish Republic, followed by the widening of the conflict into civil war as a consequence of foreign intervention. Feuchtwanger found the communists alien, especially their political behaviour in exile and their claims to leadership in the efforts to establish a popular front, but he had no fear of contact with them. Confronted with fascism, he rushed to their defence against slanders and attempts to bar them from a common alliance – something the communists did not always deserve, pursuing as they did their own Party and power interests to the exclusion of all others.

  Feuchtwanger embarked upon his Moscow visit weighed down by these considerations stemming from the Paris debates on the Popular Front. Having arrived there he found himself in the middle of the controversy surrounding André Gide’s book. Everything he wrote down by way of generalization and summary was marked by his firm determination to do nothing that might jeopardize an alliance against fascism, and to do everything in his power to promote such an alliance in France and throughout Europe. This is the background that turned a historical novelist into a political figure and catapulted him into a sphere alien to himself. It was this difficult situation that explains the confessional note in his writing. He is never concerned solely with what he sees and hears, but also with a political challenge. This is a mode of perception characteristic of a man who is acting under the compulsion to make a decision that no intellectual strategy, however ingenious, can enable him to evade. Caught up in the maelstrom of controversy, Lion Feuchtwanger was designated ‘the laureate among the German agents of the Soviets’ – allegedly the judgement of Leopold Schwarzschild – while André Gide was denigrated as one of the ‘henchmen of fascism’ – according to the baying pack of Gide critics.17

  Feuchtwanger was also clear in his mind about another weighty circumstance influencing his view of things: the importance of a change of locality, of the fact that he had, albeit temporarily, exchanged the security of ‘life in the West’ for a world of utterly new and hitherto unfamiliar experiences. Referring to his Moscow visit, he observes that ‘To compare one’s reactions to these trials in Moscow with one’s reaction in Europe is to realize the enormous difference between the Soviet Union and the West.’18 This change of place implies a shift in one’s accustomed coordinates and reference points. A process of relativization takes place in which the foreign acquires equal status with the accustomed and familiar, and casts doubt on values that had been thought of previously as universally valid. This openness to experience and the willingness to entertain the risks it involves is one of the strengths in the reports of travellers as observant as Gide and Feuchtwanger. But it is also the cause of radical feelings of insecurity and a threat to one’s confidence in one’s own judgement. Feuchtwanger was very conscious of this threat to his own self-confidence, as we can see from the words he puts in the mouth of one of his characters in his novel Exile (1940):

  People like you are lucky. You can be at home in your view of the world, as snug as a yolk in an egg. You measure the whole world by your principles as if by a tape measure; everything that exists is as cut and dried as the fact that two and two is four, and you feel completely happy with that. I don’t feel at all happy. I understand it … my brain accepts it but my feelings don’t go along with it. I don’t feel at all at home in your world, in which everything is a matter of reason and arithmetic. I would not like to live in such a world. It seems to me that the masses have too much of a say and the individual not enough. I cling to my old-fashioned freedom. The pathways in my brain are too well worn. I can’t bring myself to leave them now. At best, I could learn to see things differently in theory, but not in practice … In your world I would simply feel extremely uncomfortable, I am sure of that. I would have to give up all sorts of habits I have become attached to and without which I can scarcely conceive of my life at all. Works like these are pretty threadbare. The old is not yet dead and the new has not yet come to life; we are living in a ghastly transitional age; it really is like a monstrous waiting room.19

  Thus Feuchtwanger is fully aware of the origins and conditioning that govern his way of thinking; there is no sign here of the ‘naïvety’ of which more recent Feuchtwanger critics feel licensed to accuse him after the fact. But we are not concerned here with rehabilitating a writer who had arrived at an excessively anodyne judgement on Stalin’s dictatorship. The question is rather how an observant, alert and responsible contemporary was able to arrive at a certain image of Moscow in 1937. A reconstruction of Feuchtwanger’s Moscow 1937 which aims simply at judging the work morally would fail to see what reading such a book can achieve for us. The fact is that it can reveal the mental horizon in which Moscow was perceived in 1937, not from the vantage point of a privileged member of a later generation but from that of a contemporary who could not pick and choose the preconditions underlying his own knowledge.

  The end of the flâneur: a journey in the shadow of the NKVD

  Feuchtwanger’s programme between 1 December 1936 and 8 February 1937 was extremely crowded – so much so that he had to abandon his planned trips to the autonomous Jewish region of Birobidzhan and to Kiev. It included the obligatory tourist sights, the highlights mentioned in the Guide to the City of Moscow for 1937, which found their echo
in the accounts of both Feuchtwanger and Gide.20 These focused on the old Moscow, but even more strongly on the new – the exhibitions, the construction sites and the new buildings. Both Feuchtwanger and his Soviet hosts placed particular emphasis on as many contacts as possible with readers and writers. Numerous public readings were arranged. He spoke at the Polytechnic Museum, at the Teachers’ Association, at the Literature Section of the House of Scholars, at the Ordzhonikidze Works and at the Ball-Bearing factory. Almost every evening was filled with visits to the opera and the theatre. He saw Pogodin’s Aristocrats, Pushkin’s Fountain of Bakhchisarai, Othello, Carmen and Quiet Flows the Don. He was no less interested in the cinema. He was able to see The Sailors of Kronstadt and evidently also Eisenstein’s Bezhin Meadow – ‘a masterpiece full of deep and justifiable Soviet patriotic feeling’.21 The Hotel Metropol, where he stayed, was marked by constant comings and goings. He signed dozens of contracts, had discussions about the filming of his writings, gave radio talks that were also broadcast to Germany, met fellow writers, among them Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii Petrov, Valentin Kataev, Isaak Babel', Vsevolod Vishnevskii, Sergei Tretiakov and Boris Tal, deputy director of the Central Committee Section for Publishing and the Press.

  This programme could only be put into practice with the aid of a logistics team, which in this instance was supplied by the All-Union Society for Foreign Cultural Relations – VOKS. The society had experience and had also stage-managed the visits of George Bernard Shaw, Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland and André Gide. Unlike the situation in the 1920s, when someone like Walter Benjamin could stroll through the city as a private individual and a flâneur and lose himself in it, foreign visitors had now advanced to the status of guests of the state and found themselves in caring hands.22 Thus the well-organized tour was also a tour that was carefully monitored. We gain some insight into this from the record kept by D. Karavkina, who was responsible for arranging Feuchtwanger’s agenda. He was evidently a demanding visitor. ‘He complained about a number of minor faults: the lighting, furniture, etc. He has so many contacts that it is not easy to keep an eye on them all …’ ‘All sorts of people phoned up, wanting to see him. Many newspapers ran articles and interviews …’ ‘Although General Apletin and I do everything in our power to keep an eye on Feuchtwanger’s contacts, people that have a bad influence on him do manage to push their way into meetings from time to time.’ In this instance, the reference was to Erwin Piscator’s friend Vera Ianukova. ‘She has told him all sorts of horror stories about our housing shortage.’ She notes that anti-Soviet jokes are rife. ‘Today he asked me straight out: “Is it true that Pasternak has fallen into disfavour because his writings are not in accord with the Party’s general line?” And then he told me an anti-Soviet joke. I was taken aback, and when I asked him who had provided him with such “information” he made no reply.’ She recorded moods, nuances of the moment: ‘He said to me with some irony that he would really like to see one of his reports printed in the USSR, which would reflect the unfavourable impression he had of our life. Agreeable though life was in the Soviet Union, he would prefer to live in Europe.’23